Having to exit every time you save is just annoying, particularly when the dominant reason to save is to protect yourself from the game going KABOOM. It was annoying as fuck in Diablo 2, for instance, where there isn't any save scumming, but you still had to QUIT THE MATCH just to save, which you usually did after you found a shiny thing, in case the game decided to BOOT YOU AND LOSE YOUR STUFF.
What? Name me a single game that does that stuff. You can't. Because EVERY game designed around "no-save" function actually
autosaves your progress on a constant basis. If you get a crash during Mount&Blade no-save mod, you can rest assured - the game will return you just in the place you were before crashing. The same principle goes for roguelikes. I play Stone Soup and ADOM without worrying about shit - even if they crash or my laptop goes retard, these games won't throw me back an inch. Same goes for Diablo 2. You don't have to QUIT TO SAVE, unless you want to savescum. Maybe by "quit the match" you meant battle.net servers, but then it's online gaming we are talking about, I don't think it belongs to savescumming discussion.
Yeah, that's why when I played these games (tabletop), we typically abandoned that terrible mechanic where you can gimp your character for life purely at random in favor of a house rule of rerolling your entire HP pool at level up, and if the new roll was better than the what you had, you got that as your new HP total, and if it wasn't, you got +1 HP. This kept you from being screwed for life on a bad level-up roll, which for years, kept me playing only thieves (yes, they were thieves back then) and wizards, because d6 and d4 were the dices that I could control.
That is... original. So you basically didn't need a fighter in party at all, since he'll never get to buff up hp. I prefer the latest D&D mechanics, when you just get max hp possible for your class/constitution without any rolls and rerolls.
The other thing I see every now and again said about certain games is "SAVE OFTEN". Sometimes that is down to bugs and crashes that can wipe away hours of gaming in one go - we have all been there
Saving often if one thing, savescumming is another. There is a certain fight in Jagged Alliance 1.13 mod, widely known as "Drassen Counterattack". People often name this battle as the reason they don't play "Iron Man". JA2 isn't the most stable game ever and this battle is about 2 hours long, sometimes longer. When I played it at "Iron Man", that bitch crashed two times in a row nearly at the end. Not to say it's one of the HARDEST fucking battles in whole game, if not THE hardest.
I still prefer "Iron Man", but totally understand people who use saving as bug-insurance. But you, sir:
- save mid-fight in Risen 1, which isn't even hard combat-wise (just get those training skills, dammit or shoot tough mobs from afar)
- think that 13% of success in picking locks is reason enough for savescumming (spoiler: it's reason enough not to fucking risk it at all)
- think that combat in Wiz8 is balanced and fun. Which is not related to that thread at all, but come on. You can finish Wiz8 with Faery Bishop solo and only have troubles during first hour or two.
Spending half an hour trying to open a piddling chest with 5 gold pieces - we all have done something similar
Yes. In fucking Fallout 1, when we were young and stupid. That was EXACTLY what ruined my first playthrough and overall impression of the game. I don't remember doing that shit even once since then in other way than curiosity. "I know I'll skip that chest and won't be able to return to that location, but I wanna know what's in it, so I savescum until success, look inside, and then reload and go my way". I think I did it in Might&Magic.
My younger brother is the worst savescummer in history of gaming. He actually managed to steal Every Single Item from Every Single NPC in Fallout 2. When he was stealing used syringes from whores in New Reno, I asked him:"What kind of retarteded man is wasting so much time on savescumming for the sake of empty used syringes?". He told me this:"I know it's stupid. But the game allows it. I've got 31% chance of stealing used syringe from a whore, I am allowed to save and reload at any time. So... I am kind of supposed to do it, I guess. The game suggests that behavior, gives an option to act like that. And I can't miss an opportunity, can I?"
I treat video games like tabletops. And my brotha steals used syringes from whores. Sigh.